1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of optical recording systems and more particularly to apparatus for detecting and decoding data therefrom.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Prior art optical recorder systems using fixed block code formatted data read the data by first delaying the data so that the signal values of all symbol positions were present at a series of comparators at the same instant of time, at which time the comparators were operated to determine the two locations (assuming a code having two holes per symbol) within the symbol which had the highest signal values for the hole associated power of the reflected laser beam. (Hole associated power may be taken to mean the inverse of the power of the refelected laser beam.) These were the locations of the holes. Thereafter, the hole locations were converted from the fixed block code to binary using somewhat complex logic. The entire apparatus was somewhat complicated, expensive in the use of delay lines and comparators, and prone to failure due to loss of signal in the various delay lines.